


The Lost Sun

by Scytale



Category: Metamorphoses - Ovid, Orpheus and Eurydice (Metamorphoses - Ovid)
Genre: F/M, Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-29 17:50:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18783154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scytale/pseuds/Scytale
Summary: The only love that survives in the underworld is the one that believes it will.Of the loves that survive, and the loves that don't.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AceQueenKing](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/gifts).



They lay in bed together. Persephone propped herself up on her side, looking down at Hades. Her hair fell over his arm, a waterfall of gold.

"What did you think of the boy?" she asked.

He caught a lock of her hair and pressed it to his lips. "You want to talk about _him_ right now?"

"How else can I get your opinion instead of the king's?"

He sighed. "The boy sang well."

She rolled her eyes. "Orpheus sang more than just well, Hades."

"All right," he said. "I've never seen anyone sing better. I can’t even blame Charon and Cerberus for failing in their duties."

"Will you reconsider his request?"

Her expression was carefully nonchalant.

"Persephone," he said, tracing the line of her cheek. "His song puts the Muses to shame, but that doesn't mean he gets to ignore the laws. Does Eurydice deserve life more, because her love is more skilled than most? Should I release every lover who has someone to weep for them? There's no place for kindness in the underworld. You know that."

"I do," she said. "But you promised me there'd be a place for love down here."

He'd told her that in the spring of the world and sealed the promise with a kiss that tasted of pomegranates and sunshine. For that promise and for her, he'd reshaped the world. The world above became bare, half of the year; in the gloom below, the fields of the dead bloomed with ghostly asphodels.

He took her hand and kissed the tips of her fingers. Her fingers curled slightly; her dark eyes watched him.

"Haven't I kept my promise?" he asked her.

"You know you did," she said. She turned her face away, but not before he saw it -- the weariness that she kept hidden all those months she'd spent in the dark as his iron queen, his partner in the justice mortals called cruelty.

She sighed. "But Hades, just once, I'd like to see a love that isn't ours survive the underworld."

* * *

Orpheus had come down on his knees in front of the throne again, his lyre at his side. The gods of the underworld looked down on him from their dais, their faces remote. He had come to beg and to sing -- whatever it took, however long it took, he would have Eurydice back.

"You can save your breath," Hades said. "We have reconsidered."

Orpheus rose from his knees. "She can come back?"

"There's a one condition," Persephone said. Her expression was like shadowed ice, almost more cold than her husband's. Orpheus had made the Furies weep, but her expression hadn't changed. "An ordeal that must be passed."

"Anything," he said, bracing himself.

Hades's smile was without humor. "She will walk behind you on the path. She will give you no sign she's there, and you will not turn to look back at her until you're both out of our realm."

Orpheus had imagined dragons to be slain or treasures to be fetched. He stared up at the gods.

"What if we become separated?" Orpheus asked. It was a long, perilous path in the darkness; he might lose her. Or she might turn out not to be there at all -- how could he know this wasn't a cruel trick played by the gods?

The gods exchanged a fleeting glance.

"You must trust that won't happen," Persephone said. "If you have faith, you'll see her in the sunlight again. Orpheus, do you understand?"

"I understand," he said. He would not fail it. He had already conquered so many trials; this last one would be nothing.

The goddess smiled, and the radiance of it caught him off-guard; it felt like sunlight had suddenly warmed the hall. Hope blossomed in his heart, chasing away his doubt.

She rose from her throne. "Eurydice," she called. "Come forward." She barely raised her voice, but the walls seemed to shiver.

And then Eurydice was there, at the entrance of the throne room. Her face was pale and wan, streaked with tears, but it was her.

"Eurydice." Orpheus staggered forward, straining to reach her. All the music and poetry had left him; the only word he could say was her name. "Eurydice." Their hands clasped; she stared at him, wide-eyed.

"Orpheus," she said in the hollow, thready voice of the dead. "You came."

"I'm taking you home," he said. "I promise."

"You will walk now," Hades said. The Furies moved forward, tearing the two of them apart. Iron hands clamped onto Orpheus, forcing him to face ahead.

Orpheus took the first step with his head held high. In his mind, he still saw Eurydice, a sight more bright and beautiful than any god.

* * *

 

The path became steeper toward the exit. Orpheus stumbled sometimes, but he kept walking. Shades surrounded him, lamenting and tugging at his sleeves, his hair, at anything they could grab of life. At first, he flinched away from them, but then he just kept walking, his eyes fixed ahead.

One by one, the shades left him, until there was only one figure following behind him, always five steps behind.

He paused for breath, hunching over with his hands on his knees. He still looked upward, his eyes fixed on the the opening to the world above, only a few hundred feet away now. It was daytime in the world above.

The gods watched him from their high thrones.

“Not so far now,” Persephone murmured.

“He won’t make it,” Hades said.

“You don’t know that.”

“My love,” Hades said. “Mortals fail because of the smallest things.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes at the end of the second chapter.


	2. Coda

 

There was a limit to how much even the dead could lament. Eurydice had exhausted herself with weeping.

She sat in the fields with her eyes closed, her arms wrapped around herself. Asphodels brushed against her skin; she barely felt them.

The shades around her chittered uneasily. Eurydice opened her eyes.

She saw the Queen coming toward her. A retinue of underworld nymphs followed her, their torches piercing the darkness. When the Queen drew closer, the shades quieted and the asphodels in the field bent toward her.

“Eurydice,” the Queen said. Her eyes were bottomless black; her heavy-looking crown gold and set with bright, glimmering jewels. In her hands, she carried a goblet.

Eurydice rose and bowed. The courtesies she’d learned in her father’s halls didn’t fail her, but when she spoke, she couldn’t completely bite back her bitterness. “Have you come to speak to me, Queen Persephone?”

“I’ve brought you a gift,” Persephone said, offering Eurydice the goblet.

Eurydice took it warily. “What is it?”

“Water from the river Lethe," Persephone says. "You can forget all that troubles you.”

“No!” Eurydice said. She flinched and the goblet overflowed, some of the water spilling onto her hand. Persephone only watched her serenely. “I can’t forget Orpheus.”

“Orpheus will not come back to you,” Persephone said. “He’ll be barred from the underworld. The Maenads will tear him apart, but he will live on. His head will prophesy forever at a shrine in Antissa. But you don’t have to suffer, Eurydice.”

Eurydice looked into the depths of the goblet, the water that looked so plain. For a moment, she was tempted. If Orpheus was gone forever — why not drink? Why should she hold on to the memory of him when she would never see him again? And if it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t have seen the hope of love and light snatched away once more; she wouldn’t have died a second time without ever coming back to life.

But to forget her Orpheus, to forget his smile in the sunlight, his hand clasped like hers like a promise, his bright laughter — the thought was unbearable. His hope and his love had been as bright as her father's sun and as immovable as the stars; for her, he had tried to defy the will of the gods.

How could she choose to forget him?

She held the goblet up to her. "Thank you, Queen Persephone," she said. 'But I won't take this. I'll wait for him."

The goddess took the goblet from her. She studied Eurydice with pitiless eyes, but when she spoke, her voice was gentle. "You will wait forever. The Fates have made their decree."

“The Fates sometimes change their minds," Eurydice said. She looked across the listless shades amid the asphodels and heard the keening of the endless wind.

She smiled. “Like you said, I have all the time in the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi AceQueenKing! Thank you for the lovely prompt; I'm really fond of both Hades/Orpheus and Eurydice/Orpheus. I hope you enjoy the fic!


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